NASA mission into sun’s atmosphere named after astrophysicist

NASA’s mission to send a spacecraft into the sun’s outer atmosphere has been renamed after the astrophysicist who first predicted the existence of the supersonic solar wind.

Originally named Solar Probe Plus, the mission has been rechristened the Parker Solar Probe to honour Eugene Parker, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. This is the first time that NASA has named a spacecraft after a living astrophysicist.

Parker, who will turn 90 on 10 June, first put forward his solar wind theory in 1958. The probe will carry a digital copy of Parker’s groundbreaking paper as well as photos of the astrophysicist. “I’m greatly honoured to be associated with this heroic scientific mission,” Parker said at a press conference at the University of Chicago when the news was unveiled.

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Due to launch in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe will orbit within 6.2 million kilometres of the sun’s surface, more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has gone before. An 11-centimetre-thick carbon-composite shield will protect the probe from temperatures approaching 1400°C.

Hot gas

Solar Probe Plus will be sent into the sun’s atmosphere with a suite of instruments designed to gather data that will help researchers better understand the solar corona – a blanket of hot gases that extends millions of kilometres into the solar system. NASA’s main scientific goals for the mission are to understand the heating of the solar corona and to discover what accelerates the solar wind.

Once in orbit, the probe will measure the sun’s magnetic and electric fields, take images of the solar corona and examine what makes up the solar wind. “We’ve really come as far as we can go with looking at things, and now it’s time to go and pay it a visit,” said Nicola Fox, a mission project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

NASA is hoping that these observations will help answer fundamental questions about the physics of stars and also improve space weather forecasting. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections can send charged particles into the Earth’s atmosphere, knocking satellites out of action, causing power station blackouts and interfering with planes’ communication and navigation systems.